Charter delays NebuAd rollout after outcry

Charter, the fourth-largest cable company in the US, has delayed plans to " …

What a little Congressional attention can do! Today, Charter Communications said that it was scrubbing its current deployment plans for the NebuAd "Internet enhancement" service in which Charter's revenues would be "enhanced" by selling its users' browsing data—anonymously, of course.

It didn't take long for both Charter and NebuAd to come under scrutiny for the deal. While NebuAd has been around for some time and has previously worked with smaller ISPs like WOW!, Charter is the fourth largest ISP in the country. The fact that it was using the technology in trials caught the attention of Congressmen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), two leading lights on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The pair sent a letter to Charter in which they outlined a host of concerns about the plan and asked the company to wait until Congress could take a closer look at the technology.

Advocacy groups then published a more detailed look at how the NebuAd system works, calling it a "man-in-the-middle attack" and various other unflattering names.

Charter has now agreed to delay any further rollout, though it won't abandon the plan entirely. In a statement following the news, Ed Markey said, "Given the serious privacy concerns raised by the sophisticated ad-serving technology Charter Communications planned to test market, I am pleased to hear that the company has decided to delay implementation of this program, which electronically profiled individual consumer web usage. I urge other broadband companies considering similar user profiling programs to similarly hold off on implementation while these important privacy concerns can be addressed."

That last sentence alone may be enough to put a serious dent in the plans of both NebuAd and Phorm, the UK company using similar technology, as it tries to expand into the US market. While both companies would no doubt like nothing better than to see their technology fully deployed (and, therefore, in some way legitimated) by a major ISP, that has yet to happen beyond the trial stage. Given the Congressional scrutiny, it may be some time before most US Internet users will experience the "enhancement" of targeted ads based on their browsing histories.